“The Lost Soul” is a solitary island in the ocean of Olga Tokarczuk’s works
IBNA Children and Youth Service – Sayeh Barin: “The Lost Soul,” a short but profound work by the prominent Polish writer and Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk, is one of the most unique examples of illustrated books in contemporary world literature. Its Persian translation was recently published by “Ketab-e Ch,” a children and young adult book publisher under the Cheshmeh cultural family. This illustrated book, despite its simplicity, is a philosophical reflection on the pace of modern life and humanity’s detachment from oneself. The appeal and distinction of this work prompted us to conduct an interview with its Persian translator, Hossein Eidizadeh.
In this interview, Eidizadeh speaks about his long-standing interest in Polish literature, the stylistic and philosophical features of Tokarczuk’s works, the challenges of translating such a concise and poetic text, and the characteristics of illustrated books in the modern era. We read this interview together:
What made you decide to translate “The Lost Soul”? Were you familiar with Olga Tokarczuk’s works before, or did this book particularly catch your attention?
For years, I have been interested in Polish culture, especially its literature and cinema, so choosing this work for translation after translating several short stories, an essay, and a novella by Tokarczuk was natural for me. My acquaintance with Olga Tokarczuk had formed before this book; for me, she was a writer who had managed to build a special bridge between narrative, philosophy, myth, and language. The first book I read by her was “Flights,” even before its Persian translation. Later, several of her books were translated into Persian, and I am very happy that her works have been met with significant acclaim. When “The Lost Soul” was published, I tried to find and read it. I didn’t intend to translate it. I first found and read its electronic version, and I found it readable and profound. I decided to translate the book for myself because I felt a great writer had decided to summarize her worldview in the smallest possible dimensions; a kind of ontological conciseness. This “semantic compactness” is what attracted me, and I wanted to know if I could convey Tokarczuk’s imagination and poetry into Persian in such a concise format.
In your opinion, what distinguishes “The Lost Soul” from Tokarczuk’s other works? Can it be said that this book is a minimalist version of her intellectual world?
If we want to use a familiar metaphor for Tokarczuk’s works, given their diversity from short stories to essays and thick novels like “The Books of Jacob,” and say her works are like a vast ocean, then “The Lost Soul” serves as a quiet island in this ocean. It doesn’t have the vastness of narratives, nor the multitude of characters and intertextual references. However, one of Tokarczuk’s perennial concerns is present here in a delicate and beautiful way: the identity of contemporary humanity. In Tokarczuk’s works, even when they delve into history and the past, there is a contemporary dimension. For her, contemporary human beings, detachment from oneself, the crisis of speed, and the erosion of dreams are important even in these non-contemporary works. One can say this book is the essence of Tokarczuk’s world; a kind of philosophical minimalism. She no longer writes about building a new global architecture for the reader, but rather writes from inside a small room where a human must wait for their soul to return.
This book has a short but profound text. What challenges did you face in translating such a work? For example, where was it difficult to convey the poetic tone or the philosophical simplicity of the text?
Many of the most important books in literary history are not voluminous. It has been said and written many times that depth and meaning lie in simplicity and conciseness. Such texts often have a deceptive appearance, making one feel they are dealing with a simple text. In these texts, the risk of misstep is greater. For every word, an equivalent with appropriate weight and resonance must be chosen. The most difficult part was preserving the sentence segmentation and the meditative tone of the text; the translation had to proceed so slowly and calmly that the reader would feel they too had entered the slow rhythm of the narrative. In this type of translation, the temptation to “write more beautifully” is sometimes an enemy of fidelity. I constantly had to remind myself that this book is meant to remain calm, without technique, without superfluous embellishments, just like the original text itself.
The illustrations by Joanna Concejo are an important part of the narrative. In translating illustrated books, what approach should a translator take to ensure harmony between words and images?
In an illustrated book, words and images are not two parallel lines; they are more like two instruments in a duet. If the translation tries to impose itself, it silences the image. There must have been a reason why, unlike many children’s books, Tokarczuk did not break up her text and spread it across different pages, but instead wrote one page of text and then gave space for images to breathe, only to conclude the narrative and story in a few sentences at the end. This approach itself shows that in this particular book, images are even more important than the text itself. It was important for me to preserve the simplicity of the text, trying to keep the number of words in the translation similar to the number of words in the original text – as much as possible – so that the greatest attention when reading and flipping through the book would be drawn to the images. It wasn’t really a difficult task; I just tried to be mindful.
How do you think a Persian-speaking audience connects with the concept of “The Lost Soul”? Is there a similar concept in our culture?
In Iranian culture, the concept of a soul separated from the body is not new; from ancient times to contemporary literature, we have often encountered the idea of self-forgetfulness. In “The Lost Soul,” the encounter with this concept is modern, not mystical. Here, the soul is not seeking annihilation nor longing for union with the transcendent; the issue is the breakdown of human connection with oneself in today’s fast-paced world. Today in our country, we are all caught between geopolitical anxiety, media acceleration, and psychological erosion, and even if we don’t realize it, we have profoundly felt the concept of “leaving one’s soul behind.” Perhaps this is why this book, despite its brevity, feels internal and intimate, and perhaps it is even more applicable to us than to its readers in Poland and in other languages.
When you finished the translation, how did you feel yourself? Did this book make you look at the concepts of “living slower” or “returning inward” differently?
Honestly, I felt and still feel that this book should be constantly remembered like a whispered prayer, and its concept repeated to oneself. Yes, the first time I finished reading the book, I felt calm and decided to maintain that calmness. But the flow of life is such that these lessons are quickly forgotten, and everything speeds up again, and stress doesn’t leave one alone. I hope I can live the theme of this book, or at least consciously try to synchronize with my soul enough for it to become subconscious over time.
In Iran, illustrated books are usually considered for children. Do you think such works can find a serious place in adult literature?
You are right, “illustrated book” in the minds of many readers and even publishers is tied to “children’s literature”; meaning, upon seeing images, the mind categorizes it for a younger age group and assumes the text is simplified or educational. However, in today’s world, an illustrated book is a form of narrative, not a level of reader. Nowadays, important literary works are written in illustrated form for adults. In contemporary world literature, an illustrated book is no longer a “means of conveying a message” to a child, but rather an “artistic work” in which text and image together construct a world. For example, Shaun Tan’s books, some of which “Ketab-e Ch” has published. His works are simultaneously written for child and adult audiences. We can even say that the main audience for his works with themes like migration, depression, identity, and loneliness in the modern world are adults. These are topics whose full meaning a child cannot grasp. Let’s also consider that contemporary humans think more with images than ever before: from social media to cinema and video games, our surroundings are filled with images and graphic designs. Literature, to survive, must converse with this new perceptual structure. An illustrated book is a bridge between reading and seeing, between slow contemplation and intuitive reception.
One of the biggest biases is that we equate image with “simplicity,” whereas an image sometimes becomes a multi-layered semantic field. The text, instead of explaining, falls silent, and the image fills the void; and this type of mental participation is entirely “adult-like.” In “The Lost Soul,” you encounter such images. Images that require great attention and precision to understand their meaning and concept, and only then do these images double the book’s semantic load.
If you wanted to say in one sentence for whom “The Lost Soul” was written, what would that sentence be? And what feeling or thought should the reader take away at the end of the book?
I think this book is written for everyone involved in today’s world, each in their own way and to their own extent. This statement is now a cliché, but in today’s world, one loses oneself, forgets oneself, or, as the author of this book says, leaves one’s soul behind. We have all experienced this feeling; that we are no longer ourselves. That’s why this book is written for everyone alive today, and its message is: It’s never too late to find yourself and the meaning of your life. I think this sentence is very clichéd, and that’s why, instead of saying it to myself and others, I translated “The Lost Soul”; this book expresses the same message much more impactfully and beautifully.
